As is well known, satisfactory disposal methods associated with waste products present formidable problems to industry, governmental agencies and the like. However, the degree of difficulty in dealing with certain waste products such as medical waste is even more difficult in light of the potentially infectious nature of biomedical waste products, such as used syringes, intravenous tubing, petri dishes and the like. Such waste products may be made of all plastic elements or may include a mix of plastic, rubber and metal components.
Recognized methods of treating medical wastes include incineration, encapsulation or some other manner of rendering the contaminated waste products safe and unusable. Incineration, however, leads to still further problems, such as air pollution, and still further regulations pertaining to the elimination of metallic compounds from the exhaust fumes. For example, it is known that the red disposal bags presently used for medical waste include significant amounts of cadmium. For incineration, additional measures would be required to prevent the exhaust of such cadmium compounds and other hazardous constituents by way of incinerator exhausts.
Encapsulation in the disposal of medical sharps is also permissible in accordance with some regulations. For example, dentists in some localities may dispose of their medical sharps by encapsulating such waste in plaster. Clearly such treatment and handling processes, although authorized, present problems of convenience and practicality and do not eliminate or discourage the problem of illegal dumping.
Still further, in addition to sterilization of such waste products, it is environmentally desirable to recycle many of the materials included in the waste products. Thus, it is desirable to not only render the products safe but also in a condition such that the several materials are separated and readily recycled.
The principal object of my invention is that of treating medical waste products including plastic materials so as to render them harmless the same day of use and at any selected location, such as a doctor's office, thus eliminating any transportation and, therefore, the possibility of dumping untreated potentially infectious biomedical waste.
It is a still further object of the disclosed exemplary embodiments to separate the several materials included in medical wastes while simultaneously sterilizing the involved materials.
I have discovered that such objects can be obtained through the use of a container for the products and a dry heat generator that is useful in rendering medical waste products, such as syringes, tubing and various other wastes including plastic elements, harmless by subjecting such items and the container to a heat treatment. The temperature during treatment is sufficiently high to sterilize the various materials, as well as to melt the plastic bodies or elements within the container. Additionally, the container is constructed to include a raised portion or platform for collecting metal needles, rubber plungers, and the like, while allowing the molten plastic to pass through or over the raised portion so as to sink to the bottom of the container to form a liquid plastic pool separated from the other materials.
Since the melting temperatures of such plastic materials are substantially below their flash points, the heating function may be controlled both as to time and temperature such that a heating cycle will meet all government regulations pertaining to sterilization of both plastic and non-plastic materials but without any burning or incineration of the waste products. Moreover, the separated non-plastic elements remain on the raised portion of the container and, therefore, can be subsequently recycled as separate materials.
It is a further object of this invention to employ a reusable container constructed, for example, of stainless steel or other metal and including a raised interior portion of wire grating or screen with openings of a size so as to allow the molten plastic to pass through the grating to the bottom of the container. Alternatively, the raised portion may be a continuous metal plate with outer dimensions slightly smaller than the interior dimensions of the container to allow the molten plastic to pass along the sides of the plate to the container bottom.
Such containers may be of various sizes as determined by the nature of the waste products. Moreover, the containers may be used for holding the medical waste product until the container is either full or otherwise ready for sterilization and material separation. When placed in the dry heat generator and subjected to a heating cycle, the container with optional closure elements remain intact. However, the molten plastic materials will flow over or through the raised platform insert of the container to the bottom leaving the separated non-plastic material elements on the interior raised portion of the container. Upon cooling, the top of the container can be removed and the sterilized contents can be separately recycled in accordance with the type of separated materials.
It is a still further object of my invention to equip the dry heat generator with a safety lock feature whereby the door of the generator cannot be opened until an entire heat cycle has been completed, and the temperature of the waste products have been reduced to a predetermined safe temperature. The principal object of the safety lock system feature is that of preventing contact with medical wastes that have not been completely treated due to a loss of power, as well as preventing contact with treated sharps prior to cool down to a safe temperature.
A still further object of the invention is to include a high temperature afterburner at an exit port of the dry heat generator, as well as a charcoal filter for treating the fumes including metallic vapors, in such a manner as to eliminate any metallic or particle exhaust contents, as well as removing odors that might be generated in the process.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon reference to the following specification, appended claims and drawings.